The war has started a long time ago between two civilizations - between the civilization based on the Bible and between the civilization based on the Koran. And this must be clear.

There is no fundamental Islam. "Fundamentalism" is a word that came from the heart of the Christian religion. It means faith that goes by the word of the Bible. Fundamental Christianity, or going with the Bible, does not mean going around and killing people. There is no fundamental Islam. There is only Islam full stop. The question is how the Koran is interpreted.

All of a sudden we see that the greatest interpreters of Islam are politicians in the western world. They know better than all the speakers in the mosques, all those who deliver terrible sermons against anything that is either Christian or Jewish. These western politicians know that there is good Islam and bad Islam. They know even how to differentiate between the two, except that none of them know how to read a word of Arabic.

The Language of Islam You see, so much is covered by politically correct language that, in fact, the truth has been lost. For example, when we speak about Islam in the west, we try to use our own language and terminology. We speak about Islam in terms of democracy and fundamentalism, in terms of parliamentarism and all kinds of terms, which we take from our own dictionary. One of my professors and one of the greatest orientalists in the world says that doing this is like a cricket reporter describing a cricket game in baseball terms. We cannot use for one culture or civilization the language of another. For Islam, you've got to use the language of Islam.

Driving Principles of Islam Let me explain the principles that are driving the religion of Islam. Of course, every Moslem has to acknowledge the fact that there is only one God. But it's not enough to say that there is only one God. A Moslem has to acknowledge the fact that there is one God and Mohammed is his prophet. These are the fundamentals of the religion that without them, one cannot be a Moslem. But beyond that, Islam is a civilization. It is a religion that gave first and foremost a wide and unique legal system that engulfs the individual, society and nations with rules of behaviour. If you are Moslem, you have to behave according to the rules of Islam which are set down in the Koran and which are very different than the teachings of the Bible.

The Bible Let me explain the difference. The Bible is the creation of the spirit of a nation over a very, very long period, if we talk from the point of view of the scholar, and let me remain scholarly. But there is one thing that is important in the Bible. It leads to salvation. It leads to salvation in two ways.

In Judaism, it leads to national salvation - not just a nation that wants to have a state, but a nation that wants to serve God. That's the idea behind the Hebrew text of the Bible.

The New Testament that took the Hebrew Bible moves us toward personal salvation. So we have got these two kinds of salvation, which, from time to time, meet each other.

But the key word is salvation. Personal salvation means that each individual is looked after by God, Himself, who leads a person through His word to salvation. This is the idea in the Bible, whether we are talking about the Old or the New Testament. All of the laws in the Bible, even to the minutest ones, are, in fact directed toward this fact of salvation.

Secondly, there is another point in the Bible, which is highly important. This is the idea that man was created in the image of God. Therefore, you don't just walk around and obliterate the image of God. Many people, of course, used Biblical rules and turned them upside down. History has seen a lot of massacres in the name of God and in the name of Jesus. But as religions, both Judaism and Christianity in their fundamentals speak about honouring the image of God and the hope of salvation. These are the two basic fundamentals.

The Essence of Islam Now let's move to the essence of Islam. Islam was born with the idea that it should rule the world.

Let's look, then, at the difference between these three religions. Judaism speaks about national salvation - namely that at the end of the story, when the world becomes a better place, Israel will be in its own land, ruled by its own king and serving God. Christianity speaks about the idea that every single person in the world can be saved from his sings, while Islam speaks about ruling the world. I can quote here in Arabic, but there is no point in quoting Arabic, so let me quote a verse in English. "Allah sent Mohammed with the true religion so that it should rule over all the religions."

The idea, then, is not that the whole world would become a Moslem world at this time, but that the whole world would be subdued under the rule of Islam. When the Islamic empire was established in 634 AD, within seven years - 640 - the core of the empire was created. The rules that were taken from the Koran and from the tradition that was ascribed to the prophet Mohammed, were translated into a real legal system. Jews and Christians could live under Islam provided they paid poll tax and accepted Islamic superiority. Of course, they had to be humiliated. And Jews and Christians living under Islam are humiliated to this very day.

Mohammed Held That All the Biblical Prophets Were Moslems Mohammed did accept the existence of all the Biblical prophets before him. However he also said that all these prophets were Moslems. Abraham was a Moslem. In fact, Adam himself was the first Moslem. Isaac and Jacob and David and Solomon and Moses and Jesus were all Moslems, and all of them had writings similar to the Koran. Therefore, world history is Islamic history because all the heroes of history were Moslems.

Furthermore, Moslems accept the fact that each of these prophets brought with him some kind of a revelation. Moses, brought the Taurat, which is the Torah, and Jesus brought the Ingeel, which is the Evangelion or Gospel - namely the New Testament.

The Bible vs. the Koran Why then is the Bible not similar to the Koran?

Mohammed explains that the Jews and Christians forged their books. Had they not been changed and forged, they would have been identical to the Koran. But because Christians and Jews do have some truth, Islam concedes that they cannot be completely destroyed by war [for now].

Nevertheless, the laws a very clear - Jews and Christians have no rights whatsoever to independent existence. They can live under Islamic rule provided they keep to the rules that Islam promulgates for them.

Islamic Rule and Jihad What happens if Jews and Christians don't want to live under the rules of Islam? Then Islam has to fight them and this fighting is called Jihad. Jihad means war against those people who don't want to accept the Islamic superior rule. That's jihad. They may be Jews; they may be Christians; they may be Polytheists. But since we don't have too many Polytheists left, at least not in the Middle East - their war is against the Jews and Christians.

A few days ago, I received a pamphlet that was distributed in the world by bin Laden. He calls for jihad against America as the leader of the Christian world, not because America is the supporter of Israel, but because Americans are desecrating Arabia with their filthy feet. There are Americans in Arabia were no Christians should be. In this pamphlet there is not a single word about Israel. Only that Americans are desecrating the home of the prophet.

Two Houses The Koran sees the world as divided into two - one part which has come under Islamic rule and one part which is supposed to come under Islamic rule in the future. There is a division of the world which is very clear. Every single person who starts studying Islam knows it. The world is described as Dar al-Islam (the house of Islam) - that's the place where Islam rules - and the other part which is called Dar al-Harb - the house of war. Not the "house of non-Muslims," but the "house of war." It is this house of war which as to be, at the end of time, conquered. The world will continue to be in the house of war until it comes under Islamic rule. This is the norm. Why? Because Allah says it's so in the Koran. God has sent Mohammed with the true religion in order that the truth will overcome all other religions.

Islamic Law Within the Islamic vision of this world, there are rules that govern the lives of the Moslems themselves, and these rules are very strict. In fundamentals, there are no differences between schools of law.

However, there are four streams of factions within Islam with differences between them concerning the minutiae of the laws. All over the Islamic world, countries have favored one or another of these schools of laws. The strictest school of law is called Hanbali, mainly coming out of Saudi Arabia. There are no games there, no playing around with the meanings of words. If the Koran speaks about war, then it's war.

There are various perspectives in Islam with different interpretations over the centuries. There were good people that were very enlightened in Islam that tried to understand things differently. They even brought traditions from the mouth of the prophet that women and children should not be killed in war. These more liberal streams do exist, but there is one thing that is very important for us to remember. The Hanbali school of law is extremely strict, and today this is the school that is behind most of the terrorist powers. Even if we talk about the existence of other schools of Islamic law, when we're talking about fighting against the Jews, or fighting against the Christian world led by America, it is the Hanbali school of law that is being followed.

Islam and Territory This civilization created one very important, fundamental rule about territory. Any territory that comes under Islamic rule cannot be de-Islamized. Even if at one time or another, the [non-Moslem] enemy takes over the territory that was under Islamic rule, it is considered to be perpetually Islamic. This is why whenever you hear about the Arab/Israeli conflict, you hear - territory, territory, territory. There are other aspects to the conflict, but territory is highly important.

The Christian civilization has not only been seen as a religious opponent, but as a dam stopping Islam from achieving its final goal for which it was created. Islam was created to be the army of God, the army of Allah. Every single Moslem is a soldier in this army. Every single Moslem that dies in fighting for the spread of Islam is a shaheed (martyr) no matter how he dies, because - and this is very important - this is an eternal word between the two civilizations. It's not a war that stops. This was is there because it was created by Allah. Islam must be the ruler. This is a war that will not end.

Islam and Peace Peace in Islam can exist only within the Islamic world; peace can only be between Moslem and Moslem.

With the non-Moslem world or non-Moslem opponents, there can be only one solution - a cease fire until Moslems can gain more power. It is an eternal war until the end of days. Peace can only come if the Islamic side wins. The two civilizations can only have periods of cease-fires. And this idea of cease-fire is based on a very important historical precedent, which, incidentally, Yasser Arafat referred to when he spoke in Johannesburg after he signed the Oslo agreement with Israel.

Let me remind you that the document speaks of peace - you wouldn't believe that you are reading! You would think that you were reading some science fiction piece. I mean when you read it, you can't believe that this was signed by Israelis who are actually acquainted with Islamic policies and civilization.

A few weeks after the Oslo agreement was signed, Arafat went to Johannesburg, and in a mosque there he made a speech in which he apologized, saying, "Do you think I signed something with the Jews which is contrary to the rules of Islam?" (I have obtained a copy of Arafat's recorded speech so I heard it from his own mouth.) Arafat continued, "That's not so. I'm doing exactly what the prophet Mohammed did."

Whatever the prophet is supposed have done becomes a precedent. What Arafat was saying was, "Remember the story of Hodaybiya." The prophet had made an agreement there with the tribe of Kuraish for 10 years. But then he trained 10,000 soldiers and within two years marched on their city of Mecca. He, of course, found some kind of pretext.

Thus, in Islamic jurisdiction, it became a legal precedent which states that you are only allowed to make peace for a maximum of 10 years. Secondly, at the first instance that you are able, you must renew the jihad [thus breaking the "peace" agreement].

In Israel, it has taken over 50 years in this country for our people to understand that they cannot speak about [permanent] peace with Moslems. It will take another 50 years for the western world to understand that they have got a state of war with the Islamic civilization that is virile and strong. This should be understood: When we talk about war and peace, we are not talking in Belgium, French, English, or German terms. We are talking about war and peace in Islamic terms.

Cease-fire as a Tactical Choice What makes Islam accept cease-fire? Only one thing - when the enemy is too strong. It is a tactical choice.

Sometimes, he may have to agree to a cease-fire in the most humiliating conditions. It's allowed because Mohammed accepted a cease-fire under humiliating conditions. That's what Arafat said to them in Johannesburg. When western policy makers hear these things, they answer, "What are you talking about? You are in the Middle Ages. You don't understand the mechanisms of politics."

Which mechanisms of politics? There are no mechanisms of politics where power is. And I want to tell you one thing - we haven't seen the end of it, because the minute a radical Moslem power has atomic, chemical or biological weapons, they will use it. I have no doubt about that.

Now, since we face war and we know that we cannot get more than an impermanent cease-fire, one has to ask himself what is the major component of an Israeli/Arab cease-fire. It is that the Islamic side is weak and your side is strong. The relations between Israel and the Arab world in the last 50 years since the establishment of our State has been based only on this idea, the deterrent power.

Wherever You Have Islam, You Will Have War The reason that we have what we have in Yugoslavia and other places is because Islam succeeded into entering these countries. Wherever you have Islam, you will have war. It grows out of the attitude of Islamic civilization.

What are the poor people in the Philippines being killed for? What's happening between Pakistan and India?

Islamic Infiltration Furthermore, there is another fact that must be remembered. The Islamic world has not only the attitude of open war, but there's also war by infiltration. One of the things which the western world is not paying enough attention to is the tremendous growth of Islamic power in the western world. What happened in America and the Twin Towers is not something that came from the outside. And if America doesn't wake up, one day the Americans will find themselves in a chemical war and most likely in an atomic war - inside the U.S.

End of Days It is highly important to understand how a civilization sees the end of days. In Christianity and in Judaism, we know exactly what is the vision of the end of days. In Judaism, it is going to be as in Isaiah - peace between nations, not just one nation, but between all nations. People will not have any more need for weapons and nature will be changed - a beautiful end of days and the kingdom of God on earth.

Christianity goes as far as Revelation to see a day that Satan himself is obliterated. There are no more powers of evil. That's the vision.

I'm speaking now as a historian. I try to understand how Islam sees the end of days. In the end of days, Islam sees a world that is totally Moslem, completely Moslem under the rule of Islam. Complete and final victory.

Christians will not exist, because according to many Islamic traditions, the Moslems who are in hell will have to be replaced by somebody and they'll be replaced by the Christians.

The Jews will no longer exist, because before the coming of the end of days, there is going to be a war against the Jews where all Jews should be killed. I'm quoting now from the heart of Islamic tradition, from the books that are read by every child in school. They Jews will all be killed. They'll be running away and they'll be hiding behind trees and rocks, and on that day Allah will give mouths to the rocks and trees and they will say, "Oh Moslem come here, there is a Jew behind me, kill him." Without this, the end of days cannot come. This is a fundamental of Islam.

Is There a Possibility to End This Dance of War? The question which we in Israel are asking ourselves is what will happen to our country? Is there a possibility to end this dance of war?

The answer is, "No. Not in the foreseeable future." What we can do is reach a situation where for a few years we may have relative quiet.

But for Islam, the establishment of the state of Israel was a reverse of Islamic history. First, Islamic territory was taken away from Islam by Jews. You know by now that this can never be accepted, not even one meter. So everyone who thinks Tel Aviv is safe is making a grave mistake. Territory, which at one time was dominated by Islamic rule, now has become non-Moslem. Non-Moslems are independent of Islamic rule; Jews have created their own independent state. It is anathema.

And (this is the worse) Israel, a non-Moslem state, is ruling over Moslems. It is unthinkable that non-Moslems should rule over Moslems.

I believe that Western civilization should hold together and support each other. Whether this will happen or not, I don't know. Israel finds itself on the front lines of this war. It needs the help of its sister civilization. It needs the help of America and Europe. It needs the help of the Christian world. One thing I am sure about, this help can be given by individual Christians who see this as the road to salvation.

Perhaps our strategy will be successful and America will convert the world of islam into a peace loving paragon of modernity.

But, I wouldn't bet on it.

The Arab world is the worst and most backwards, next to the Jihadi cesspool of Pakistan. But Pakistan may change, due to GEOTV, showing Indian programs and prompting a lot of wistful nostalgia for the common entertainment cultures of the two countries and Musharraf's recent come to the light moment(s).

The current expounders of Islamism and Islamic terrorism, mostly Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran. Iran is on the edge of overthrowing the mullahs, so I would wait and give some discrete aid to the rebels. Syria and Saudi would not last 48 hours against the forces currently positioned in Iraq. India would take out Pakistan quickly if we ever gave them the green light.

A few more 9/11-type incidents, or even one super-9/11, and it would not be hard to get the American people behind doing a Carthage on the Muslim world. And the US military could take out the combined militaries of the entire remainder of the billion-person Muslim world in 72 hours

These were all proxy wars, all despots using communism as a tool to further their intentions.

And the Islamic world is composed of despots using Islamism as a tool to further their intentions.

Perhaps the solution would be to surgically take out the despots and the mullahs they use to promote their Islamist ideology. Make it clear that promoting, financing, or preaching radical Islam puts you on the hit list

A) consider the exercise of an individual's First Amendment rights to be treason, and B) you believe that I should not get so uppity as to forget "my place", and attempt to rise above my station in relation to real Americans.

Ganelon, there's a difference between what you're doing and what the Rosenbergs did. You're not giving secrets to our enemies or sabotaging our physical defenses. What you are doing is downplaying the threat that Islam and pan-Arab nationalism represent to our national integrity.

In 778, Charlemagne had to leave behind a small group of troops to defend a pass in the Pyreneese mountains. He instructed neighboring allies to come to their rescue if the Moors were to attack.

Attack they did, and Roland blew his horn calling out for help.

Ganelon cried that Roland was merely hunting, when actually he was summoning forces to defend against the 400,000 attacking Moores at Roncesvalles. Because Ganelon purposefully mischaracterized his comrades' alarm, Spain fell. The story is best told here.

I've heard that in the Pyreneese mountains, they sometimes still hear a lonely horn blowing in the night. Luis, the horn is blowing. You're telling us not to listen to it. Wake up, Ganelon. History will not be kind to you.

"And the Islamic world is composed of despots using Islamism as a tool to further their intentions."

That's like saying that because of the actions of Castro, Chavez, and the Shining Path guerrillas, the Hispanic world is composed of despots. You can't simply generalize that broadly and remain focused on the true enemy, which is this version of Islam that emerged less than a century ago.

Most of the "Islamic world" lies outside of the Middle East, as a matter of fact, the overwhelming majority of it lies outside of the Middle East, it serves no purpose whatsoever to paint them with such a broad stroke, and turn hundreds of millions of people who have absolutely no beef with us, into the enemy.

My "agenda", if indeed I have an agenda, is to maintain everyone's eyes focused on the enemy...Muslim extremism, Wahabbi directives, Saudi funding, and ignorance, all of which can be fought in one small area of the world--the Middle East--without actually engaging the non-combatants that comprise 90% of Islam.

156
posted on 01/25/2004 3:02:10 PM PST
by Luis Gonzalez
(The Gift Is To See The Trout.)

There's perfect proof of my arguments, while nearly 80% of the world's Muslims are NOT Arabs, every group you've depicted are either Arabs, or Persians.

Even in the midst of your cutesy cut and paste games, your asinine name calling, and in spite of your best efforts to keep people as ignorant of the facts as do extremist Muslims clerics, the truth surfaced.

157
posted on 01/25/2004 3:08:07 PM PST
by Luis Gonzalez
(The Gift Is To See The Trout.)

There are an estimated 1.2 billion Muslims in the world. The Organization of Islamic Countries has 55 member states. The ten countries with the largest Muslim population are: Indonesia (170.3 million), Pakistan (136 million), Bangladesh (106 million), India (103 million), Turkey (62.4 million), Iran (60.7 million), Egypt (53.7 million), Nigeria (47.7 million), and China (37.1 million). Of these countries only Egypt is an Arab country. Most Arabs are Muslims, but most Muslims are not Arabs.

159
posted on 01/25/2004 3:12:19 PM PST
by Luis Gonzalez
(The Gift Is To See The Trout.)

"Perhaps the solution would be to surgically take out the despots and the mullahs they use to promote their Islamist ideology."

Exactly.

What the extremists within Islam in the Middle East fear the most, is the secularization of Islam, take them out, and allow for the trappings of Western civilization to take hold in Syria, Iran, etc., and their power will be lost forever.

The better educated the people, and the more advanced their economy, the least likely that they will engage in terrorism...unless of course, they are Wahabbis.

162
posted on 01/25/2004 3:20:59 PM PST
by Luis Gonzalez
(The Gift Is To See The Trout.)

Your analogy then makes every single American complicit in the murder of one million unborn children every year, as those who do oppose the genocide, are ineffectually and unable to stop it.

That is true.

If you hide from the truth, it can't find you. I found the pictures, letters, and press releases on Muslims around the world gathering in support of America in the aftermath of 9/11, you did not because you failed to look for them.

Why would you have to go looking for the truth if it weren't hiding?

My point is exactly the opposite, my point being that because a portion of the German people pursued "absolute genocide", it did not mean that ALL German people pursues absolute genocide, anymore than all Muslims seek to murder non-Muslims.

No one said all German people pursued genocide, but they did ignore it.

If the Koran causes terrorism, then how does one explain the 1960s, when militant Islamic violence barely existed?

Funding.

That "elsewhere" takes you directly to the House of Saud, and the rise of Wahabbism.

So the new militancy if the fault of a guy that died before the turn of the last century?

Funny that you should offer up communism, a war that we won without having to frontally engage an enemy, but was defeated by the power of ideas. Same situation here.

Only in the sense that the consequence of those ideas was formation of a tangible military machine that could not be overcome.

There is very little funding required to spread extremism, if funding was a requirement, the Bolsheviks would have never dethroned the Czar.

Bolsheviks did not dethrone the Tsar. He abdicated in favor of pro-Western pro-democratic government long before Bolshevik coup. His abdication enabled Germans to fund Communist takeover. It is true that Bolshevik murdered God-fearing Tsar, his wife and children but it is another story.

Muslim moderates demand crackdown on extremists

Indonesia's moderate Muslim organisations demanded today that authorities crack down against religious extremists, who they said represent a fringe minority among the country's 170 million Muslims.

Former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid said he believed that Abu Bakar Bashir, the spiritual leader of a group suspected in last week's Bali bombing, should have been arrested long ago.

"I believe that Bashir is a terrorist," Wahid said in a radio interview.

Wahid, who was replaced as head of state by Megawati Sukarnoputri last year, has been sharply critical of her administration's cautious approach toward radicals.

Wahid's organization, Nahdlatul Ulama - whose 40 million members make it the world's largest Muslim grouping - and the 30-million member Muhammadiyah both urged the government to act more decisively against small groups of militants such as Jemaah Islamiyah, which is suspected in the October 12 nightclub bombing in Bali that killed at least 180 people and injured around 300.

Their leaderships say that groups like Jemaah Islamiah or Laskar Jihad - a recently disbanded paramilitary gang blamed for waging a religious war against the Christian minority in the Maluku islands - are a tiny minority in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation.

Megawati has already signed an emergency decree that allows terrorist suspects to be detained for up to six months without charge, but religious moderates have called on her administration to implement even tougher anti-terrorist legislation.

Their calls came as authorities considered how to interrogate Bashir, Jemaah Islamiyah's ailing leader. He was arrested Saturday on suspicion of involvement in a series of church bombings two years ago.

Bashir, who has been in hospital since Friday, denies any links with terrorism.

Several dozen Islamic students continued their vigil Monday outside the hospital in the town of Solo where he is being treated for breathing problems. They have vowed to block police from removing the cleric from the hospital. Armed policemen stood by but did not intervene in the demonstration.

Bashir's doctors said he was improving and could be released in two or three days.

Police are considering confining the cleric to Solo under police supervision, or taking him to a police hospital in Jakarta and holding him there.

Three explosions suspected

In Bali, Gen. Edward Aritonang, a national police spokesman, said Sunday that authorities now believe that three explosions destroyed Paddy's pub and Sari's nightclub on the island of Bali.

Previously, police assumed an initial, smaller blast damaged Paddy's seconds before a much more powerful explosion at nearby Sari's, causing most of the casualties.

It was not immediately known how they later concluded there were three explosions.

Aritonang said authorities believed there was no link between the nightclub attack and a grenade blast near the office of the honorary U.S. consul at about the same time. There were no casualties in the grenade attack.

The investigation - conducted jointly by more than 100 investigators from Indonesia, Australia, the United States, Britain and other countries - was proceeding well, Aritonang said.

"There has been some progress now," Aritonang told reporters.

Warning of the threat of new terrorist attacks, Australia urged its citizens to leave Indonesia. The United States advised Americans to put off travel to the country.

Other countries in South-East Asia have said they would tighten security.

183
posted on 01/25/2004 3:56:42 PM PST
by Luis Gonzalez
(The Gift Is To See The Trout.)

It looks to me as if your whole hope for the future is in belaying some future escalation of the conflict in hopes that moderate muslims will come to your rescue. How different from that characterization is the real sentiments you wish to express?

"It looks to me as if your whole hope for the future is in belaying some future escalation of the conflict in hopes that moderate Muslims will come to your rescue."

My position is simple, the one you've chosen to disregard, and misrepresent at every opportunity, while thumping your chest at the sacrifice that "your people" gifted me with, as if "my people" had not suffered a million deaths to gain freedom, so quickly stolen from them...we need to identify the enemy, keep them separate from the non-enemies, and work to eradicate the enemy. The enemy being defined as extremism, and confined to the actual perpetrators of that extremism. We do not need to paint all Muslims with one broad stroke of a brush, and fault them with the actions of a minority.

Having said that, I have no desire to converse witn you any further, I find your posts offensive in their position of my being somehow less an American, because I got here after your immigrant forebears did.

193
posted on 01/25/2004 4:20:04 PM PST
by Luis Gonzalez
(The Gift Is To See The Trout.)

Your words... "And the Islamic world is composed of despots using Islamism as a tool to further their intentions." The Islamic world lies mostly outside of the Middle East, thus, by your definition, Indochina, India, Pakistan, China, are included.

Cool. I was not aware that the despots of China, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia (there is no such country as Indochina) were using Islamism to legitimatizes their rule.

And, BTW, India is a reasonably-free democracy

Let me clarify my words some more: when I say "Islamic world", I'm talking about those majority-Muslim countries run according to Islamic principles (or at least their interpretation of it). Thus countries containing some percentage of Muslims (which would include most countries these days) would be excluded if the Muslims were not in a dominant ruling position

Clearer now?

Taking inventory of those countries which are majority Muslim (outside of fairly-secular Turkey), you find precious little freedom and Western-style liberty. That's what I'm talking about.

What I've been arguing against all along, are the generalizations being thrown about, the most prevalent of which is that Islam is inherently evil.

The moment that I point out that most Muslims live in areas where Sharia laws are NOT enforced, and that the vast majority of Muslim extremism is concentrated in countries that have been more often the target of terrorism, than sponsors of it, the generalizations sputter.

I did not list countries with "some percentage" of Muslims, my list showed that most Muslims live outside the region at fault for 99% of all Islamic extremist terrorism.

What makes Turkey different, is the Western-style secularism...that's what Muslim extremists are fighting, the spread of Western secularism leading to more Muslims countries like Turkey.

If that's what they fear most, the spread of Western secularism, then that should be our primary weapon against them.

What we must NOT do, is launch Western Christian fundamentalism at Muslim extremism...no one will win that war.

199
posted on 01/25/2004 5:16:34 PM PST
by Luis Gonzalez
(The Gift Is To See The Trout.)

Thus, a new and liberal government came to power in Russia. All those cultured, sensitive souls from Chekhov plays were running the country. This provisional government commanded the fervent support of millions; unfortunately, none of them were in Russia. What is freedom of the press to a nation of illiterates? The provisional government inherited chaos and chose to perpetuate it. Although the world war had toppled the monarchy, the new government intended to keep Russia in the carnage. The Russian masses were ready for any leader or ideology that ended the war, and Lenin took this as his opportunity.

In late March 1917, Lenin walked into the German consulate in Zurich and offered to overthrow the Russian government. He must have learned the word "chutzpah" from Leon Trotsky. Lenin peddled the Bolshevik Revolution essentially as an initial public offering. If Germany provided him with the start-up capital for his venture, he would seize control of Russia and withdraw it from the war. Germany could then shift its eastern army to France, and, with that additional half-million men, bludgeon its way to Paris and victory.

Though Lenin's scheme was preposterous, the Germans were receptive to gruesome ideas. The Second Reich had already pioneered submarine warfare and poison gas, so it was willing to invest in proletarian uprisings. Germany provided the train and traveling expenses for Lenin and his cadre of Bolshevik exiles. They arrived in Russia in April 1917; they were in control by November.

There was no one to defend democracy in Russia. Russian liberals made excellent novelists, but their idea of defense against a Bolshevik onslaught was to make a sarcastic remark in French. Most of the liberals survived the revolution (even Lenin thought that they were too amusing to kill) and ended up as tenured professors at Ivy League schools.

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